Writing our way to awareness

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From the Tidepool to the Stars

One cannot help but be in awe when one contemplates the . . . marvelous structure of reality. — Albert Einstein

A handsome dragonfly–a widow skimmer, I believe–is gracing my garden these days. It has been much too quick for me and my camera; dragonflies are such excellent fliers that aviation engineers research them hoping to glean ideas for improving aircraft.

We humans copy many of nature’s patterns, both purposely and accidentally, I’m sure; notice the rotational symmetry demonstrated in the following cosmos bloom and in our vintage aermotor windmill.

Sometimes nature seems to have enjoyed a specific design so much that it crafted visual echoes of its own.

I can almost feel the remembered touch of my childhood companion, a pet lamb named Woolybritches, when I see this lamb’s ear leaf in the garden:

And this bat-faced cuphea bloom on the opposite side of the yard brings a smile to my face as I compare its visage to those of the Mexican free-tailed bats which populate our Texas hill country during the summer and prevent our having a mosquito problem:

But, along with Einstein (pretty good company, no?), I also find awe in other organic forms which nature repeats. One pattern that particularly inspires wonder for me is the spiral repeated in nautilus shells, in some galaxies, and in cyclones.

So when I buy an organic romanesco cauliflower, as pictured at top, I often think of more than its delicious flavor. Its own spirals remind me of John Steinbeck’s thoughts on nature’s repetitions, penned in The Log of the Sea of Cortez:

. . . all things are one thing and one thing is all things–plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together . . . it is advisable to look from the tidepool to the stars and then back to the tidepool again.